It could be either fact or fiction, conjecture or possibly a prediction.
Flyball is for any dog, but a purebred is worth more according to the latest restructuring of titles and points in the racing classes. If you can, for a moment, imagine a flyball world with 100% purebred dogs or maybe 75% purebred dogs and 25% mix breeds. I wonder what that would look like. I wonder if it would be a better flyball world than it is today.
The Breed Challenge Process and the just announced Multibreed Class points restructure appear to be related. A few blog articles have previously discussed these topics; but, I’m not yet able to fully connect the dots and I have these random thoughts rummaging around.
The following random thoughts are based solely on my own perception as well as loosely based on previously known and/or published facts. I say ‘loosely based facts’ because I do not intend to use exact quotes; however, they will be facts to the best of my knowledge or recollection.
- NAFA BoD has stated that purebreds are at a disadvantage performance-wise in flyball.
- NAFA BoD proposes that purebreds be awarded more points for racing than most mix breed dogs via the restructure of Multibreed racing points.
- Flyball used to be one of the best priced dog sports around; however, if you run in Multibreed your dog may be subject to a breed challenge process that may cost you more money if you choose to defend your dog’s status.
- If you run Multibreed you may want to or need to purchase an ILP/PAL from AKC or another breed registry organization in order to defend your dog’s status.
- NAFA has for the past few years had association with or sponsorship from the AKC Canine Partners.
- NAFA participants may register their dog with AKC Canine Partners for a reduced fee.
- It was recently announced that NAFA has been invited to (demo at) the AKC 2011 Championships in Florida this coming December.
- Recently announced on NAFANews Yahoo, with regard to the Multibreed racing point restructure, 2/3 votes ‘for’ will result in binding the proposal and it will be adopted into the Rules of Racing. However, if 51% votes ‘for’, the BoD has (sole) discretion to make the decision.
- The choice will be up to the NAFA flyball community. They have 3 months to decide before placing their vote. I mean the NAFA delegate vote holders have 3 months to decide (i.e., club owner, judge, regional director, bod member, officer, other contributor as assigned by NAFA). Or, it could be the BoD will end up using their discretion to pass their own proposal.
Random thoughts. v/r, Linda
12 comments ↓
Linda, I asked on the other thread and haven’t seen a response, so I’ll ask again. What the heck does AKC Canine Partners have to do with any of this? AKC Canine Partners is all about **mixed breeds.** See the webpage: http://www.akc.org/mixedbreeds/ [Note the URL actually contains the words "mixed breeds."] That relationship would actually seem to disprove your half-baked theory that the NAFA BoD is somehow seeking to promote purebreds over mixes.
The fact that Canine Partners is an AKC program is what is creating the theory that AKC and NAFA are linked. And, since AKC is a breed registry, logic then follows that they will be promoting purebreds more than mixes. All you have to do is look for AKC events taking place, then look at how many of those allow mixed breeds to compete (which takes events like Rally and Obedience down from many events upcoming to one or none when I look)
AKC is ALL about promoting purebred dogs. That is its stated mission and has been since its creation/founding over one hundred years ago.
Canine Partners was created by AKC when it was under a lot of public political pressure to stem the rising tide of unwanted dogs that ended up euthanized because there were not enough homes for them.
You see, AKC’s position was that it could not “do anything” to stop “puppy mills” from breeding and selling puppies that were perceived by the public as worth more because they came with AKC “papers” attesting to their purebred status. What too many people do not understand is that AKC papers only mean that we know who mommy and daddy are to a litter of pups. It has NOTHING to do with “quality”.
Well, it took a lot of effort by a lot of people over a LONG period of time but, AKC made some changes that allowed responsible breeders to mark their AKC puppy litter registration papers so that more litters IN THE FUTURE could not be bred and registered by the AKC if these pups fell in the hands of intended puppy mills. (Kennels who bred dogs for business and solely for the purpose of making a profit by trafficking in dogs).
To this day, the AKC is despised by some folks for all their foot dragging addressing their culpability in the puppy mill problem. No, AKC didn’t actually do the breeding or selling of puppies. They made their money on every litter registration and dog registration the puppy mills applied to AKC to get.
Canine Partners makes AKC appear to be supporting mixed breeds. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Canine Partners is about promoting the AKC and AKC is about promoting pure-bred dogs. AKC makes some money from Canine Partners and gets good public relations out of it.
The link between AKC and NAFA loosely is this: AKC is huge compared to NAFA with “deep pockets”. It takes money to put on the CanAm and AKC has got money. So, in order for NAFA to put on the kind of “big show” it wants in the CanAm, hooking up with AKC Canine Partners to foot the bill is a match made in heaven for both organizations.
One thing I will say about the AKC is that they will not put up with any unethical nonsense when they have proof in their hands. They don’t mess around with competitors filing “charges” against each other. AKC Officials conduct their own investigation and if they find out you did something (like knowingly falsify a pedigree or registration papers) you will be suspended of all AKC privileges pronto.
Of course, that’s what AKC is all about. Its only as good as the integrity of its records, the Stud Book.
I don’t think that NAFA is about promoting pure-bred dogs yet but, I DO think that when AKC yells “JUMP”, NAFA will be in the air before they ask “How high?”
Just My Opinion,
Chris
-NAFA BoD proposes that purebreds be awarded more points for racing than most mix breed dogs via the restructure of Multibreed racing points
Minor correction here, Linda. NAFA is not proposing that purebreds be awarded more NAFA title points. It is proposing that ALL dogs on a Multi-breed TEAM be awarded more points for entering the Multi-breed Class.
Entering either Regular Class or Multibreed Class is a choice. It is up to the TD on whether or not to offer that choice which is influenced by the number of potential entries as well as the physical limitations of the venue where your event is held.
-It was recently announced that NAFA has been invited to (demo at) the AKC 2011 Championships in Florida this coming December.
AKC is not holding “Championships”. Eukanuba is. It’s an AKC sanctioned conformation dog show that Eukanuba is sponsoring. I believe that it was NAFA that was contacted but, not sure “who” did the contacting (AKC or Eukanuba) and I don’t know if the “invite” was exclusively to NAFA. I think they just want a good flyball demo for folks coming to see the dog show.
>If you can, for a moment, imagine a flyball world with 100% purebred dogs or maybe 75% purebred dogs and 25% mix breeds. I wonder what that would look like.
Actually, that IS what flyball looks like today.
I checked the database which indicates that there have been a total of 4197 dogs registered with NAFA described as ‘mix’. I couldn’t find the current total of all dogs but, NAFA estimates that number to be around 16,000+ dogs. So, do the math. 4197 divided by 16,000 and the number you get is 26.23%.
There will always be Regular Class. I think that those who do not enter the Multibreed class should still care about those of us who do enter but, find Multi-breed class is being taken away from us by TDs who do not offer it anymore.
I can’t imagine a flyball world with no more Multi-breed.
>NAFA BoD has stated that purebreds are at a
> disadvantage performance-wise in flyball.
That’s actually true, mainly because people are not choosing to do Flyball with their purebreds, or if they are, as soon as they get all competitive about it get a Border Collie or a border/staffy. But I wouldn’t actually say that PUREBREDS are at a disadvantage as much as “purebreds that are not considered to have a lot of drive or would be good height dogs.”
- NAFA BoD proposes that purebreds be awarded more points for racing than most mix breed dogs via the restructure of Multibreed racing points.
NAFA BoD proposes that dogs on Multibreed teams be awarded more points for racing. As an incentive to make multibreed teams. Do I have any idea if it will work? No. But it isn’t favoring purebreds. It’s favoring dogs on multibreed teams. That could easily be a Border Collie, a Dutch Shepherd, a Border/Staffy and a Whippet. It could also be (as was common on a multibreed team my old team might have fielded) a Border collie, a rough collie, a sheltie, and a mix (NOT a sport mix, just Mr. Heinz 57)
- Flyball used to be one of the best priced dog sports around; however, if you run in Multibreed your dog may be subject to a breed challenge process that may cost you more money if you choose to defend your dog’s status.
Still is. How will it cost you more money? If the dog is a purebred and already registered with one of the accepted registries, all you have to do is whip out the registration. If it isn’t and you want to try to PAL it, it will cost you a one-time fee of $35. That’s hardly a ridiculous amount of money. It costs more for someone to challenge you.
- If you run Multibreed you may want to or need to purchase an ILP/PAL from AKC or another breed registry organization in order to defend your dog’s status.
You might. You might not. You might ALREADY have the ILP (as I did when I started running my first Flyball dog, a Sheltie). It MIGHT make you think twice about registering a known mix as a breed–particularly a rare breed, or even a rare-to-Flyball breed…
- NAFA has for the past few years had association with or sponsorship from the AKC Canine Partners.
- NAFA participants may register their dog with AKC Canine Partners for a reduced fee.
- It was recently announced that NAFA has been invited to (demo at) the AKC 2011 Championships in Florida this coming December.
It’s not news that AKC is trying to be more family-dog and mixed-breed friendly. It IS interesting that NAFA was invited to demo at the Eukanuba National Championships, which is not a mixed-breed event. (it’s top five Conformation, Agility, and Obedience).
NAFA used to have a tournament at the Cynosport Games which they lost money on–it seems that that was part of the reason they started the CAN-AM. Cynosport just happened over the weekend, and I watched a lot of the live stream. Even though USDAA has been open to mixed breeds ever since its inception, very few of the dogs entered were mixes, especially at the higher heights–basically, it was border collie border collie border collie until I wanted to take a nap. Of the mixes that I saw, only a few were “accidents”–the rest were deliberate sport mixes. At AKC Nationals, you see a much greater mix of breeds (even of breeds making it to the finals, though it is still mostly border collies at the higher heights).
AKC *does* promote purebreds more than mixes, that’s the organization’s mission. That doesn’t mean that NAFA promoting the AKC’s mixed breed program means that NAFA is promoting purebreds. That’s just faulty logic.
It used to be that AKC didn’t allow mixes to compete at all. AKC Canine Partners is a recent program so it’s not surprising that it isn’t offered that widely yet. Change takes time and faces a lot of resistance. The fact that Canine Partners exists at all was a huge step in the right direction IMO, and I’ve never been an AKC fan. I thought it made sense for NAFA, which has always allowed mixed breeds, to make a partnership with the Canine Partners program to encourage mixed breed owners, of whom there are many in NAFA (including me) to check it out as another venue for having fun with their dogs, as well as to give some positive reinforcement to AKC for finally allowing mixes to compete, especially on an equal footing.
Crystal, you hit it on the head.
Chris, your minor corrections are well appreciated. On a related note, another commenter in a previous post mentioned NAFA is mostly Border Collies and Mixes. I didn’t do the math as you have.
Dede, see Crystal’s comments; hope I’m fully-baked now.
Nora and Chris regarding my thought that NAFA thinks purebreds are worth more is sort of what you each have stated…Multibreed teams will be awarded more points…there must be 4 different breeds to qualify as a Multibreed team (i.e., 4 purebreds or 3 purebreds and 1 mix; at most only 1 mix breed would be allowed to run on a multibreed team)…that’s 1 out of 4 dogs…hence, purebreds are to be awarded more points than ‘most mix breeds’.
Linda
The number of competing dogs in 2010 was 6500. That number was given to me by Dale Smith. I don’t know what the number is for 2011. I wouldn’t base purebred/mix ratios on total number of dogs ever registered with NAFA (which is the 16,000 number) as I think that would skew more towards purebreds because sport mixes have only gotten popular relatively recently. I think for the discussion to be meaningful you’d have to use only the number of active dogs.
@Chris–I hold no particular brief for AKC, and I agree with you that AKC is attempting to tap in to NAFA’s customer base–but perhaps this move (and NAFA’s establishing a challenge process for breeds) is a means of NAFA tapping in to AKC’s customer base?
Let me tell you a little story: Not too long ago, I was asked to a Flyball demo and mini-seminar at a breed club national specialty. The person who asked me, it turned out, has a dog (a breed champion and an Agility dog) who picked it up REALLY fast (like she was triggering the box and returning with the ball in her first lesson). We refined this a little bit and recently ran her at a U-FLI tournament (we are not picky about which organization we do Flyball with). Due to the TINY number of this breed registered with U-FLI, she IMMEDIATELY became the #1 dog in her breed. Did my friend think this was extremely cool? You BET she did. Does she want to do more Flyball? You BET she does! Is she getting her friends with purebreds (and mixed breeds) to come to our classes? You BET she is. And the people at the tournament thought it was cool too, since you so rarely see this breed at Flyball–several people took pictures.
This dog will speed up to a good speed when her handler figures out passing, but will never break any records. Some people actually do Flyball with the dog they have, because they have a good time and the dog loves it–and aren’t going to all of a sudden get a Border Collie or a sport mix because they can be more competitive. Multibreed makes these dogs more valuable.
One more thing–there is one very natural reason why AKC and NAFA (Flyball in general) might want to join forces. AKC is the ONLY major organization that consistently fights breed-specific legislation. They put a lot of money and time (and political clout) into this. People with sport mixes should perhaps take notice.
>perhaps this move (and NAFA’s establishing a challenge process for breeds) is a means of NAFA tapping in to AKC’s customer base?
@Nora, I agree with you totally on this one as to your insight to NAFA’s motivation but, I still say that the reason for tapping into the AKC customer base is about MONEY.
Money is good for NAFA. The more money you have, the more flexibility you have to do what you want to do. That’s ok. The problem I see is that NAFA can and will set aside the best “interests of flyball” in favor of what they believe is “the best interests of NAFA”.
Do you see there is a difference in those two concepts?
Now, how closely linked the “Breed Challenge Process” is to NAFA’s relationship with the AKC is anybody’s guess. They adopted the Breed Challenge even though the majority was opposed to it. They adopted it even though I personally wrote several times that the Delegates had a “right” to vote on it.
They adopted it without seeking or desiring our input on the Breed Challenge Process.
Here’s what I speculate: I think there were a significant number of Board members who AGREED that the Breed Challenge Process would further erode any interest or support for the MultiBreed Class. But, they DID NOT want to put the Breed Challenge to a Delegate vote and they certainly WANTED to adopt it without any more discussion or delay so, somebody suggested that NAFA “revitalize” the Multi-Breed Class as the price for voting to adopt the Breed Challenge. Further, they appealed to the worst motivations of some flyballers who have a desire to accumulate as many title points on their dogs as is “caninely” possible. THAT idea they were willing to put to a binding delegate vote because it had a better chance of passing than the Breed Challenge would.
….but, that is ALL pure speculation on my part until the August Meeting minutes are published and then we will ALL know what was discussed and how it came about.
The facts are that there was no MultiBreed Revitalization proposal on the working agenda for this meeting and it was NOT a leftover item from a previous meeting. I checked what was published and then sent an email verifying my findings with a Board member.
I don’t think AKC gives a hoot about NAFA’s Breed Challenge Process. That was adopted to satisfy the few in NAFA who LIKE conflict, confrontation and controversy in NAFA. The ability to “contest” another competitor does NOTHING to secure the integrity of NAFA. It only gets NAFA officials “off the hook” to do the policing and enforcement of our rules to people who are troublemakers and not looking out for the sport as a whole.
I will have this opinion of all of NAFA’s challenge/contest processes until NAFA does something more to protect innocent competitors from those who abuse this system.
Chris
“….but, that is ALL pure speculation on my part until the August Meeting minutes are published and then we will ALL know what was discussed and how it came about.”
I wonder if and when the August minutes will be published. Thus far, only highlights are posted; and, in fact, there are 2 separate highlights posted with different dates on NAFA’s website which from what I can see they are identical. Plus, the minutes from an October meeting are already published.
I sent an inquiry to NAFA asking about the August meeting minutes and was told (on Oct. 26):
“I don’t have an estimated date at this time Linda. Once we get a draft from the secretary, it usually takes around 2 weeks before a final version is approved. I will follow up with Ally today and see where she is with them.”
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